


The Corps Is Not "Slavery" - You've Been Misled

by pallasite



Series: Behind the Gloves [105]
Category: Babylon 5, Babylon 5 & Related Fandoms
Genre: Backstory, Bigotry & Prejudice, Canon As Propaganda, Canon Compliant, Discrimination, Essays, Fix-It, Gen, Historical, How canon misled you, Psi Corps, Telepath Law (Babylon 5), Telepath War, Worldbuilding, telepaths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-14
Updated: 2018-04-14
Packaged: 2019-04-22 16:32:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14312733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pallasite/pseuds/pallasite
Summary: The truth isn't what it seems, again.The prologue ofBehind the Glovesishere- please read!





	The Corps Is Not "Slavery" - You've Been Misled

**Author's Note:**

> What is this series? Where are the acknowledgements, table of contents and universe timelines? See [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10184558/chapters/22620590).
> 
> If you like _Behind the Gloves_ and would like to send me an email, I can be reached at counterintuitive at protonmail dot com. Do you have questions? Would you like to tell me what you like about this project? Email me!
> 
> I also have an [ask blog](https://behind-the-gloves.tumblr.com/), a [writing blog](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/pallasite-writes), and a "P3 life" Tumblr [here](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/p3-life) with funny anecdotes. :)

I hear it over and over again: "The Corps is slavery!" Even among those who correctly identify that it is normals who are oppressing telepaths, and not telepaths oppressing telepaths, still there remains a substantial misconception that the Corps is a form of slavery and is "how" normals oppress telepaths.

Well, sure you think that, because that's what the show tells you. I mean, look at all the [lies and omissions and distortions](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12827937) in just _A Race Through Dark Places_ , one of the key episodes in framing (falsely) for readers that the Corps is "slavery."

By saying "the Corps is slavery," some are trying to say that _normal intent_ when creating the MRA (and then the Corps) was "slavery." First, note that this is crucially different from saying, about the time period of the show (150 or so years later), "the Corps is slavery," which is false in all ways, economically and otherwise (as I explain below).

First, to back up a bit about the history.

What is the Corps? It is a giant, independently-chartered, [regulatory agency](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_agency) of EarthGov. From 2156 onward (for one hundred years), the Corps functioned as a semi-sovereign entity: on one hand a part of EarthGov, funded by EA taxes, and controlled and overseen by powerful mundanes, but simultaneously on the other hand, acting as it's own semi-sovereign government, running its own schools, healthcare system, police, prisons, trade unions, social services, and other functions of a state (minus military, at least overtly).

The fundamental element of "slavery" is when one dominant group profits off of the unpaid, forced labor of another, subordinate group. This situation is _entirely_ different. One, no one is forced into unpaid labor - telepaths are guaranteed a job and middle-class lifestyle, with the Corps acting as their union in negotiations with the business community. (If you want to hire a telepath legally, there's only one game in town, and that's the Corps - and you have to pay the standard rates.)

And then, rather than normals making money off of the labor of telepaths, the Corps itself is funded by EA taxes. (It's a regulatory authority - legally a branch of EarthGov.)

  * Though telepaths make up .1% of the population, and telepaths in the Corps are even less than that (because .1% includes those not strong enough to be in the Corps), this tiny minority gets a MASSIVE budget from the EA Senate every year (the Corps is the largest agency in all of EarthGov!) to run its schools, hospitals, police, prisons, and so on.
  * Telepaths are not "slaves" - normals are paying _through the teeth_ to maintain a system that allows all telepaths to be guaranteed a middle-class standard of living, free (excellent) health care, free (excellent) schools, and... the key element that normals want out of the deal, for telepaths to "control" their own population, by force when necessary.
  * Do many normals resent such vast sums of the EA's budget going to pay for telepaths in one way or another? Sure. Some would abolish the Corps and try to control telepaths some other, cheaper way (like they tried with the "new rules"). Some would prefer that lots of telepaths somehow died (you know, "somehow") so they wouldn't have to keep paying for them.
  * Others hate the cost, but their fear of telepath social, legal, political, and military power is even greater, so they accept the "bitter pill" of the status quo.



Got that?

  * The Corps is far from self-sustaining, financially. The amount of money that normals make back in taxes or fees from the work of telepaths is _minuscule_ \- normals pay all the money to keep the Corps system in place because they're _that_ scared of rogue telepaths, or of legal telepaths coming to power and gaining equal rights with normals (which they view as "tyranny").
  * On the Corps' side, it is this economic dependence on EarthGov (and normal taxes) that keeps them from declaring sovereignty at any point in the 100 years prior to the show (well, that and for most of this time, they didn't have the military power to fight such a war).



The economics is also another factor (among many) that makes Byron's planet idea impossible. Telepaths either work directly for the Corps, or they work for normals (in business, in the courts, etc.).

So, is the Corps in any way like "slavery"?

No. The Corps is _by far_ the closest thing telepaths have to sovereignty - though it remains under normal control. However, if the Corps were ever to become fully controlled by telepaths (for example, by a telepath director elected in free and fair elections by the telepath population, and under more limited "oversight" authority by mundanes), the Corps could be even closer to sovereignty. (Though still with major obstacles in terms of economics and lacking sovereign territory, however... but it would be better for telepaths.)

Telepaths differ as widely in political viewpoints as normals do, but wherever one comes down, most telepaths want more freedoms, more rights, and more autonomous self-control. And most (correctly) view normals as the source of their problems.

This is why so many telepaths keep saying that "one day, a war is coming between us and mundanes." Not all that bullshit about "we're a superior race!" or whatever Nazi dogwhistles the normal writers put in the mouths of telepaths, but simply because telepaths have been oppressed for a hundred and fifty years and they're tired of this bullshit. And they're willing to go to war with EarthGov to demand their rights back.

Of course, telepath power and authority scares the hell out of normals, who created this whole damn system in the first place to keep telepaths _out_ of power. As telepaths seem to gain more and more actual power over their own lives and fate (and Bester's faction in the Corps represents this camp... he even assassinated the director for selling out to the Shadows), normals become more scared of losing their control over this population they have subjugated for so long, and who they believe they have the absolute right to subjugate.

Not just the "right" - for telepaths to get back equal legal rights would be nothing short of "tyranny" against them, the normals! (Wait for it, kids - I have a JMS interview espousing exactly this view. I discuss it later, in the chapter about court process and the rules of evidence.) So obviously there are powerful normals who want to abolish the Corps and then (somehow) bring telepaths back under their (normal) control. And to effectively do that, they need propaganda. They need to convince everyone that the Corps is evil, that they're Nazis and fascists, that their enemies aren't terrorists but are actually "freedom fighters," and that the Corps is somehow "slavery."

Thus the "the Corps is slavery!" narrative is born - and the show, written from a mundane point of view, tells you that it's the Corps, not normals, that's keeping telepaths oppressed, so naturally, it must be destroyed in order for telepaths to be "free." (Never mind that the destruction of the Corps tore apart everything that worked in telepath lives - jobs, schools, health care, fair wages - while leaving in place almost all of the oppressive laws normals had against telepaths in the first place. Normals got telepaths to kill each other so they wouldn't turn on their true oppressors - them.)

\-----

It is also important to note that unlike the dogwhistles of _A Race Through Dark Places_ , there is also no direct parallel to be drawn between the fear and oppression of telepaths and anti-Black racism (in that world or this one). Fear of telepaths is based on just that -  _fear_. It is not rooted in a model of normal "superiority" - it's the reverse.

Normals fear that telepaths are somehow "superior," and that they can, or do, make up some real or potential "secret global conspiracy" to take over the world (more akin to certain forms of that-world or this-world antisemitism - Ironheart's lines about the Corps' secret plot to TAKE OVER THE WORLD!, reminiscent of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, were written to present this (untrue) fear to be true, thus justifying the destruction of the Corps later on).

The Corps exists to control the economy? Really? To control the courts? To control the world?

Holy crap, talk about dogwhistles.

(Fun game: Go through the show, take [this famous test for antisemitism](http://www.jcpa.org/phas/phas-sharansky-f04.htm) (itself a shortcut and not a definitive "test"... I'm raising this for illustrative purposes) and apply it to the show by replacing Israel with "the Corps." See what you get - how many times the show explicitly or implicitly calls the Corps (or Bester personally) "Nazis," how often the Corps is demonized or presented as "illegitimate," how often double standards are applied between actions taken by "bad telepaths" and by sympathetic normals. I'm not trying to say there is no legitimate criticism of the Corps. There's plenty of that to be had. I'm saying _this isn't it_.)

Given all these normal fears of the sneaky, superior telepaths plotting to take over the world (government, politics, the courts, the economy, etc.) - in the show, all that garbage Ironheart says, all the [innuendo that the Corps assassinated Santiago](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12852477), etc. etc. - given all these fears of mundanes, these laws and regulations concerning telepaths are seen by them as "necessary" to keep telepaths "equal," meaning, "in their place."

To normals (and to JMS - I have this in an interview vis-a-vis court process and the rules of evidence), telepath equality under the law would be "one step removed from tyranny." Telepaths can never be trusted, because they're telepaths. Though normals differ in  _how_ they believe telepaths should be "controlled," they do not seem to differ in the belief _that_ they must be "controlled." Telepaths _must_ be stripped of these rights in order for the system to be "fair."

And that's why telepaths know that some day, there's going to be a war.

So, my readers! If you're on the side of justice, if you're on the side of telepath rights and sovereignty, if you are on the side of telepath equality under the law - you've been misled. You're on the wrong side.

You shouldn't stand with mundanes who want to destroy telepath lives and livelihoods, directly or indirectly. You shouldn't stand with rogue telepath terrorists who want to kill - and ultimately destroy - their own family (Lyta), which they ultimately do. You shouldn't stand with mundanes who supply these radical insurgents with money (Garibaldi), weapons (Garibaldi, Lyta and G'Kar), or with military or logistical assistance (the show's "good guy normals," in the movie about the Telepath War which you never got to see... but come on, you expect me to believe Sheridan didn't help them out?).

You've all been misled.

Not that your support makes any difference in the end, because what happened, happened, but this project does aim to correct the record.


End file.
